A few of the reasons why nurses desperately need vacation time........and why we would be better off if we never actually took any.
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It's been only about 144 hours (give or take 20 minutes) since I bid my co-workers and residents "hasta luego" for ten days, but I already feel like I've been away for weeks.
This is both good and bad. Good because I've actually gotten to go somewhere, and now am relaxing at home for a few days before resuming my appointed rounds; bad because I just KNOW my desk is a magnet for work, and I can practically hear papers piling up to a height that will no doubt topple over onto my head the instant I walk into my office next Monday morning. Besides, I'm nosy, and I want the down-and-dirty on why one of our independent residents stroked out while I was at the seashore. I want to know if the PITA with the Munchausen's has managed to get himself sent to the ER yet again, or if staff have been able to hold the line with the limits I set on his behaviors before I left. Most of all, I have this morbid curiosity about whether anyone misses me.....or has even noticed that I'm gone.
So here's a top-10 list of reasons why nurses---especially neurotic, anal-retentive management types like me---really shouldn't go on vacation. Ever.
10) There's too much relaxation. What do you do when there's nothing to be stressed-out about? That's right: create something to be stressed-out about. What else?
9) There's not enough "stuff" to occupy the mind. Brains that are used to functioning at warp speed don't run as well in a lower gear, which leads to embarrassing gaffes such as blowing off the tip for a $150 meal and forgetting how to use a phone with a cord (good thing hotels put in those really durable ones that can handle being yanked out of the wall and dropped on the floor without breaking into a gazillion pieces).
? It takes too long to get used to not being responsible for everything. The waitress drops your cup of java in transit and YOU automatically apologize to HER.
7) Freedom to choose which activity to do first is a bit boggling when one is accustomed to a regimented schedule. Half the time you end up not doing anything at all because you can't make up your mind; the other half, you do things like "shopping/casino/beach......no, let's do beach/shopping/casino" and then you go to the casino first, which cancels out the shopping trip and lands you on the beach for the rest of the vacation because there's no money left for anything else.
6) You find yourself almost hoping some stranger will need medical attention, lest you forget all your skills in the space of ten days. Almost: See below.
5) The more practical side of you whispers, "Stethoscope? WHAT stethoscope??!" even though you've carried one in your car since nursing school and been known to use it while assessing victims at the scene of an accident.
4) Time seems to telescope on itself---a phenomenon which enables you to simultaneously wave good-bye to your co-workers on Friday night while walking in the front door on Monday morning.
3) You rent way more brain space than is healthy to the gossips, wondering if they're trash-talking you in your absence. (Paranoid much?)
2) Vacation time is bad for a nurse's twitchy GI tract, which is apt to rebel at the introduction of real coffee and actual food instead of the rotgut mud and canned/boxed meals they serve at the workplace (and which you grab by default because a) it's there, and b) it's free.) I'm on day 7 and still haven't gotten my inner workings straightened out yet.....it's like they don't even know what to DO anymore with fresh grilled halibut in lemon sauce and seasonal vegetables from the local farmer's market.
And then, there's the number-one reason why nurses shouldn't go on vacation:
1) We have to come back. No matter how much I love my job---and I do---there will be a moment or two on Monday morning when I'm really going to be hating life....like when that mountain of papers falls over and knocks the cup of Seattle's Worst out of my hand.
